Initial data from a land registration drive launched in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem point to a “deeply alarming” trend of land appropriation by the Israeli state, an Israeli rights group said Monday.
Land registration in East Jerusalem began during the British Mandate between 1923 and 1948, and continued under the Jordanian administration starting in 1949.
Israel resumed land registration in east Jerusalem in 2018, reviving a process that had largely been suspended after it occupied and annexed the territory in 1967, said Bimkom, an Israeli rights group focused on urban planning and the protection of Palestinian rights in east Jerusalem.
The rights group examined the first official data covering roughly 2.3 square kilometers, or about 3% of east Jerusalem, where registration procedures have been completed.
It found that 82% of the land surveyed had been registered under the Israeli state or the Jerusalem municipality.
Another 9% was listed under “unknown owners” — a classification the group described as an initial step toward eventual state takeover — while 4% was registered to Jewish owners, most of them connected to the settler movement, according to AFP.
According to Bimkom, approximately 4% of the plots were registered to churches, while only 1% were recorded under Palestinian ownership.
Bimkom warned that the registration process is being used by Israeli authorities for “effectively taking land … from beneath people’s feet,” calling it “deeply alarming.”
“This data clearly indicates that the renewed… procedures do not serve — and were not intended to serve — the Palestinian residents of the city, but rather to provide a bureaucratic tool for the appropriation of Palestinian land for the benefit of the state,” it said.
The registration process advances plot by plot and lacks transparency, Bimkom architect Sari Kronish told AFP.
“There is no transparency regarding why and how the choices of where to begin are made,” Kronish said.
The areas where registration has already been completed largely correspond to vacant land earmarked for settlement construction, a pattern Bimkom says reinforces concerns that political motivations are driving the process.
The NGO added that a small part of these zones include Palestinian homes, but most of which have been registered under the state or entities linked to settlement groups.
Until Monday noon, Israel’s justice ministry, which oversees the registration process, did not respond to requests for comment.
Bimkom denounced what it described as increasingly restrictive measures toward Palestinians, for whom proving land ownership has become nearly impossible.
Jerusalem lies at the core of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Also, the report said that in 2025, Israeli authorities approved only about 640 housing units for Palestinians in East Jerusalem, compared to roughly 9,000 units approved for Jewish residents across the city.